Geographic Alliance of Iowa

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
by Kelly Davidson

Grade Level
Middle School

Inquiry Question
What can photographs tell us about geography and culture?

Objectives
Students will

• examine and analyze photographs from India.
• hypothesize about photographs from India.
• make conclusions about geographical location or culture in India

Standard
Standard 3: Analyzing the spatial organization of people, places, and environments in a spatial context.

Themes
Place

Multiple Intelligences
Visual-Spatial

Materials
Photographs of people and/or places in India. May be obtained from Internet sites, magazines, etc.
Photo Analysis handouts

Time
One class period

Procedure

1. Put students into pairs and give each pair a photograph of people and places of India.
2. Allow students time to study their photograph.
3. Pass out copies of the Photo Analysis handout. Give students about twenty minutes to observe, study, and analyze their photograph.
4. Have each pair present their findings to the class and show their photograph to the group. The teacher should answer perspectives questions, if possible.
5. Display photographs and handouts around the classroom.

Assessment
Participation, Photo Analysis handout

Science - The analysis somewhat follows the scientific method. Compare this procedure to lab experiments done in science.
Language Arts - Write stories about the people in the photographs and what they are doing.
Art - Draw pictures using the same topics as the photographs. Make a series with the actual photograph as part of the sequence.

 

 

                         Names ____________________________________________ Section ______________

1. Describe exactly what you see in the photo. ______________________________________________________________

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2. What people and objects do you see?__________________________________________________________________

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3. What is the physical setting? _________________________________________________________________________________________________

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KNOWLEDGE

4. Summarize what you already know about the situation, geographical location, and the people and objects that appear.

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________

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HYPOTHESIS / INTERPRETATION

5. Who might the people or person be? __________________________________________________________________________________________

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6. How do you think the people or person feels (emotions)? __________________________________________________________________________________________

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7. What do you think is going on in the picture? __________________________________________________________________________________________

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GOING FURTHER / EXPERIMENTATION

8. What questions does this photo raise?

a. _________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________

b. _________________________________________________________________________________________

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c. _________________________________________________________________________________________

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CONCLUSIONS

9. What can you conclude about the location and/or culture based upon this photograph? _________________________________________________________________________________________

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